Gallium nitride materials include gallium nitride (GaN) and its alloys such as aluminum gallium nitride (AlGaN), indium gallium nitride (InGaN), and aluminum indium gallium nitride (AlInGaN). These materials are semiconductor compounds that have a relatively wide, direct bandgap which permits highly energetic electronic transitions to occur. Gallium nitride materials have a number of attractive properties including high electron mobility, the ability to efficiently emit blue light, and the ability to transmit signals at high frequency, amongst others. Accordingly, gallium nitride materials are being investigated in many microelectronic applications such as transistors and optoelectronic devices.
Despite the attractive properties noted above, a number of challenges exist in connection with developing gallium nitride material devices. For example, thermal considerations should be taken into account in the design of gallium nitride material devices, so as to enable electronic devices to reach their potential to operate with high power densities. Increased device temperature can have adverse affects on the performance of devices. For instance, increased device temperature can result in lower carrier mobility, lower sheet charge density, lower effective saturation velocity, and higher leakage currents, effectively limiting the ability of the device to produce RF power. Accordingly, heat should be removed efficiently from the vicinity of its generation to the outside environment to keep device temperatures below a desired limit.